
3 

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LIBRARY 

STATES BUREAU OF EDUCATION, 

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR. 



Entry Catalogue Number 



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BookJE Zb U_JT 



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A Light Through the Storm 




A LIGHT 1 HROl'GH THE STORM. 

lri.ni a painting b> William K^iili 




A Light Through the Storm 



CHARLES A. KEELER 



And who feels discord now or sorrow? 

Love is the universe to-day — 
These are the slaves of dim to-morrow. 

Darkening Lifers labyrinthine zuay. 

— Shelley. 



^ 



AD 



K 




SAN FRANCISCO : 

WILLIAM DOXEY 

1894 






Copyright, 1894 
By CHAS. A. KEELER 



By TTa, 



6 © 
< C C 

1 , ! 



Press of C. A. MURDOCK & Co. 
SAN FKANCISCO 



DEDICATION. 

You love the subtle-odored violet, 

Breathing its tender perfume in the shade, 
While all the spreading leaves are dewy wet, 

In morning 's jewels splendidly arrayed. 
And often I have seen you low inclined, 

Seeking the timid flower 'mid its bed, 
Plucking the hidden joy to deftly wind 

A wreath of love, my love to fondly wed. 
So now, my dear companion on life's way, 

Loved wife, do I this wreath entwine for you : 
This echo-wreath of thoughts still clogged with 
clay, 

Baffled thd struggling towards the fair and true. 




CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Life's Journey u 

Progress 12 

The Runners .,. 13 

The Unreturning Hours 14 

Song. 15 

An Arrow's Flight 16 

The Stone Cutter 17 

To a Floating Seed 18 

Weep, Fond Heart.. 19 

The Mountains 20 

An Evening Sonata.. 21 

To the Moon 24 

The River that Flows to the Sea 25 

Life's Calender 27 

When the Heart is Sad and Lonely 28 

Aspiration 3° 

A Soul's Wanderings . . .' 33 

I. Solitude 33 

II. The Vale of Tears 34 

III. Consolation 36 

Song 38 

The Everlasting Promise 39 

Spring Song 41 



PAGK 

Youth and Age ... 42 

Did Christ Once Walk the Earth? 43 

A Fleeting Vision 44 

The New Democracy 45 

Stones for Bread ' 46 

The Age Enchained. [An Allegory] 47 

Joy and Sorrow 59 

Song 60 

Dreaming on the Sea 61 

To a Winter Wren 62 

Ballad of Annabell 63 

Oh to Catch the Soul at its Start 65 

A Vision of Solitude 66 

Krall 7 i 

Song 73 

A Joyous Band 74 

The New Teleology 79 

At Sea in the Tropics 80 

A Universal Prayer 81 

'1 o a Robin 84 

For William Keith 87 

The Return of Spring in the Mountains 89 

The Voices of the Storm go 

On Science 91 

A Ballad of the City 94 

Death's Domain 96 

Redemption 98 

Ode on Sleep 100 

Thoughts from the Wilderness. [On receiving a letter from 

London] 102 



PAGE 

A Song of Work loS 

Ode to Death m 

Niobe 

A Spring Phantasy I]6 

Gently, Gentl}-, Voices Stealing II9 

Footsteps 

Attis 

Ode to the Past 

Love's Rescue 

Fate.. 

To a Sea Gull 

Sonnet on the Times . 

A Forest Longing 

Freedom Triumphant.. T , 7 

Oh Blessed Hope, Still Dream 

The Eternal Secret 

Farewell to the Mountains 

To a Thrush 

Reflections on Finding the Skeleton of a Deer in the Forest 

Nature's Harmonies TC -, 

1 5o 

Voices That Speak in Mournful Melody I5 6 

Footprints by the Sea I57 

The Unkn >wn Region I£ -g 



120 
122 
123 
124 
129 
130 
132 
135 



I40 

I42 
144 
147 

: 5i 



Illustrated with five photogravures of paintings by 
William Keith, and drazuings by Louise Mapes Keeler. 



Life's Journey. 1 1 



LIFE'S JOURNEY. 

Life went a-journeying through the world, 
Where all before him was dark and strange; 

In his hand was hope in its green bud furled, 
In his heart was love with its star-wide range. 
# 

Beyond him was night in its sombre wold, 

But he clasped the bud in his firm hands tight. 
Pale, tear-stained Grief her sorrows told, 

And the love at his heart was moved at her 
plight. 

On and on went Life on his endless way, 

Toward the night and the gloom of the threat' ning 
storm ; 

But the bud in his hand was green alway, 
And the love at his heart was ever warm. 

And he never came to the deep night vast, 
Tho' he felt the storm burst darkly round, 

For a light streamed ahead when the storm was past, 
And the green bud bloomed with the love he had 
found. 



i2 tA Light Through the Storm. 



PROGRESS. 

Slow, patient, ceaseless, striving day by day, 

While silent epochs wing their constant flight 

Amid eternity, each atom's might, 

Crushed or exalted by the restless play 

Of powers fretting at the vast delay, 

Is upward pushing where it sees the light, — 

Seeking expression of th' eternal right 

Incarnate in some glorious array. 

Call not thy seeking blind, mysterious one, 

Thou pilgrim who hast scorned the formless sod, 

Forever climbing nearer to the sun, 

Forever reaching upward to that God, 

Who, in creating thee, himself proclaimed 

The loadstar of thy course — the unattained. 



The T{unners. 



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THE RUNNERS. 

Faster, faster, faster, nerves at strain, 
Heaving chests and hearts that throb with pain, 
Come the runners down the track in vain, — 

For the goal is never won, 

And they stagger as they run, — 
Oh the runners with the goal they never gain ! 

Lusty youths they are with nostrils wide, 

Every one is running for his bride, 

Every heart is stretched with unquenched pride, 
As they pant with sobbing breath, 
Running towards the arms of death, 

Death the goal that every heart defied. 



i4 zA Light Through the Storm 



THE UNRETURNING HOURS. 

The great clock sounds, 

The time is flying, 
The big heart pounds 

While the soul is dying ; 
The loud waves break 

On the troubled shore, 
But the dead will awake 

From their sleep no more. 

The red sun wheels 

From the flaming sky, 
And the pale moon steals 

From the clouds on high ; 
So the world moves on 

From day to night, 
With the dear face gone 

That has been our light. 



Song. i 5 





SONG. 

It's O! and it's O! 
Where the cowslips grow, 
Down in the meadow my love we'll go, 
Where the song-sparrow starts from his hidden 

nest, 
And dew-drops hang on each grass-blade's crest; 
We'll find where the breeze murmurs coolest and 

best, 
There to rest, my love, to rest. 

For it's O! and it's O! 
Where the soft breezes blow, 

Mid the sweet-scented clover, my love, we will go; 
There the warm south wind will tell us its bliss, 
For never was known such a rapture as this, 
And there in the meadow 'twill not come amiss, 
One kiss, my love, one kiss. 



1 6 zA Light Through the Storm. 



AN ARROW'S FLIGHT. 

An arrow's flight 
With no end in sight 
Through the silent night, — 
Only a winging 
And sudden singing 
And flash of white ! 

Oh, arrow, arrow, 

With path so narrow 

And flight so far, 

Not like the sparrow 

That falls and dies 

Is thy flight through the skies, 

Thou art aimed at a star. 



The Stone Cutter. 17 



THE STONE CUTTER. 

Oh stalwart hewer of the stubborn stone, 

With mighty blows you shape some form divine, 

Pictured in your poetic heart alone, 

Huge fashioner of life's supreme design. 

Daily you hammer, hammer at your task, 

And nightly ponder while the hours stalk by ; 

The years roll on, you work and never ask 
To see your task completed ere you die. 

Oh strange old gray-beard toiler, huge and grim, 
Forever chipping from that form ideal 

The rude projections, — imperfections dim 

That cloak the lovely dreams your strokes reveal: 

Oh sculptor Time, thou venerable one, 

Still hew and hammer shapes divinely dreamed, 

Still work thy busy purpose, still outrun 

Thy first begettings which in childhood teemed. 



i; 



zA Light Through the Storm. 




m rfTT 3K_iffl^Sa*^?_j^. 





TO A FLOATING SEED. 

Frail winged fairy, born in summer's glow, 
Launching upon the world's uncertain way, 
Slight, dainty voyager, brooking no delay 
Upon thy course that bends at last so low; 
Chasing the careless winds that round thee blow, 
Or climbing at the sky in airy play 
Upon thy life's one joyful holiday, 
Before thou seek'st thy patient, silent woe: 
Oh, seedling, when I see thee floating by, 
My heart is filled with wonder and with awe 
To think what loveliness thou dost imply ; 
What promise ! what result ! what constant law ! 
To think that thou art flowers and fruit to be, 
The joy and gladness of futurity. 



Weep, Fond Heart. 19 



WEEP ; FOND HEART. 

Weep, fond heart, and if thy weeping 
Comfort not thy secret pain, 

Trust that somewhere dimly sleeping, 
Joy will prove thy anguish vain. 

Midst the bitter pangs of passion 
Lurk the hopes of joys to be, 

Every throbbing pain we fashion 
Links us to eternity. 

Weep, fond heart, but not despairing, 
Trust in life's intent supreme, 

Love is busy still preparing 
Flowery haunts of joy serene. 



2o zA Light Through the Storm. 



THE MOUNTAINS. 

The mountains ! the mountains ! 

There never can be 
A home like the mountains 
For my love and me, 
With their cool flowing rillets and pattering 
fountains, 

Then, ho, for the mountains ! 
We'll tread them with pflee. 



cV 



We'll see the light deer as he leaps from his lair, 
And the eagle that cleaves the far heights of the air; 
We'll sleep where the pine trees are singing on high, 
On a bed of their fragrant green boughs we will lie. 
For the mountains ! the mountains ! 

There never can be 
A home like the mountains 
For my love and me. 



*An Evening Sonata. 21 



AN EVENING SONATA. 

Divine enchantress, liquid-fingered maid, 

Trembling thy soul upon my list'ning ear, 
Shaping thy wizard melodies, arrayed 

In airy garments to my fancy dear, 
Let me invoke thy spell of sheer delight, 

Thy buoyant rhapsody of mellow sound ; 
Have pity on my music-hungry plight, 

And let my brimming heart with joyance bound, — 
Beating in time with thy fast flying wings, 
Threading the mazy paths of silver strings 
That palpitate to feel their hopes are found 
Amid the tempered joy thy pathos brings. 

The lady wizard touched the keys in joy, 

While all the world seemed dancing to her theme. 

What sorcery is this thou canst employ 

To waft me thus to fair enchantment's dream? 



22 zA Light Through the Storm. 

For round me fairyland is gathered near, 

Peopled with elves and fays beneath the moon, 
Sporting in spritely gayety to cheer 

The sleepy flowers from their nightly swoon. 
The balmy air is talking to the leaves 
In mellow undertone that softly weaves 
Its murmur with the idle tinkling stream, 
And all the sounds that mingle in a dream. 



Now comes a slow procession through the glen, 
Of white-robed priests that chant a solemn song, 
Of ladies with bowed heads, and silent men, 
Troubled with woe at some celestial wrong ; 
Whereat the fairies grieve to see the throng, 
And cease their merry wantonness of glee 
To slip away in silent misery. 
The arched trees reverberate the strain 
Chanted so deeply toward the moon-bright sky; 
Piercing the dreamy birds with honeyed pain, 
So sweetly sad each note did swell and die. 
Then came they to a newly opened grave, 



iAn Evening Sonata. 



23 



And laid therein the fairest maid of all, 

And kissed her pallid brow, then sudden gave 

A cry so loud and wild it did appall 

The very dead that started at the call, 

The resurrected dead that heard the cry, 

The maiden soul that floated through the sky 4 

With Psyche, arm in arm, while near and far 

The angel form of every clustered star 

Joined in the throng that swam the midnight air, 

To guide the new-born maid with watchful care 

Higher and higher through the dewy night, 

Nearer and nearer that serene delight 

That dwells beyond the confines of despair, 

And beats its downy wings in ceaseless flight 

Where all is love and joy and goodness fair. 




24 *A Light Through the Storm. 



TO THE MOON. 

Lady that sleeps in peaceful tenderness, 

Climbing the dark pavilioned blue of night, 

Drifting upon thy destined way of light 
To glad the solitude of night's distress 
With silvery gleams of silent loveliness, 

Stealing through latticed clouds that breathe 
delight, 

Dreaming of orbed melody, the solemn rite 
Of starry conclaves steeped in blessedness ; 
Thou art more dear to me because I see 

Thy fair enchantments imaged in my sky, 
Because my love is so allied to thee, 

My love that floats amid the blue on high ; 
I charge thee, lady moon, companion be 

To her I love and ever fancy nigh. 



The River That Flows to the Sea. 25 




THE RIVER THAT FLOWS TO THE 

SEA. 

Silent river, silver river, floating dreamily as sleep, 
Gliding down the measured reaches toward the 

unrestoring deep, 
Lapsing through the meadow marshes where the 

wild duck builds its nest, 
Winding through the solemn forest, with its awful 

shade oppressed : 

As I linger on the languid silence of thy tide serene, 
Watching every rippling eddy breaking the reflec- 
tions green, 



26 zA Light Through the Storm. 

Listening to the wavelets swashing idly on the 

pebbled shore, 
I am filled with deeper sadness than my soul has 

known before. 

As I float upon the flowing silence of the evening 

stream, 
Mid .the gloaming's rapt devotion and the sun's 

departing beam, 
With a strange, exultant sorrow I am thrilled to see 

thy flow, 
And to feel the evening stillness centered on the 

western glow. 

For I hear amid the stillness rhythmic pulsings far 

away, 
Telling of the troubled ocean with its sobbing of 

dismay; 
Silent river, silver river, ever flowing to the sea, 
Toward the sobbing, heaving ocean, you are softly 

bearing me. 



Life's Calender. 



27 










LIFE'S CALENDER. 

The past is dead in its grave, 
The future asleep in its cave, 
And the present — how swiftly flies 
Its form, ere it dies. 



Who says that the past is dead — 
That the present lives on in its stead? 
' Tis the present alone that is slain 
With its moment of pain. 

And the future still hovers ahead, 
With its meaning undreamt, unread. 
To its promise we bend our eyes, 
As its visions uprise. 



28 iA Light Through the Storm. 




WHEN THE HEART IS SAD AND 
LONELY. 

When the heart is sad and lonely, 
When the weary day drags by 

Fraught with cares and woes, when only 
Sigh responds to hopeless sigh ; 

When we feel the incompleteness 
Mocking every thought and deed, 

When we mark time's dizzy fleetness 
Sweeping on as fate decreed ; 



When the Heart is Sad and Lonely. 29 

When the bursting throb of feeling 
Swelling through life's fragile day, 

Striving for its woe's concealing, 
Sees the end with sick dismay : 

Then, oh love, with boundless gladness, 

Heart looks into heart to see 
Purple vistas through its sadness 

Stretching towards eternity. 

Love looks then with eyes inspired, 

Bursting mortal chains of care, 
Clasping what its soul desired 

Mid the pure unfettered air. 



30 *A Light Through the Storm. 



ASPIRATION. 

My brain grows dizzy as I watch the flight, 

In free gyrations, of an eagle's drift, 
In endless circles pinioning the light 

Of blue, eternal silence, 'mid the shift 
Of undulating clouds. What waste too far 

For your undaunted wings to climb ? What zone 
Of atmospheric distance can debar 

Such vital aspirations at the throne 
Of light immortal ? Go, thou sluggish soul, 

Like Ganymede enclasp Jove's mighty bird, 
Nor fear the giddy steeps that hem the goal 

So far beyond your ken; for hope can gird 
The everlasting void that, tire on tire, 

Above us arches towards eternal rest. 
Enclasp thy eagle, thrilled with glad desire, 

And dauntless seek far heaven's immortal crest. 




THAT SPECTRE SOLITUDE MAINTAINS HER STATE. 



.'*! 



zA Soul's Wanderings. ^ 



A SOUL'S WANDERINGS. 

I. Solitude. 
With silence or the whisper of the dead, 
With hollow echoes of the muffled tread 
Of ghost or ghoul in mediaeval tower, 
Startling the crumbling pile at midnight hour, 
That spectre Solitude maintains her state, 
Inscrutable and vast and desolate. 
I know her countenance of ashen hue 
And shudder at the thought. I sadly rue 
The fate that thrust me in her sombre way, 
Omnipotent enchantress, with a sway 
That owns no rival in her boundless fane — 
Most miserable ministrant of pain. 
She haunts the troubled wilderness of sea, 
And shrieks to keep the fierce gale company; 
I hear the wherry of her throbbing wings 
Commingled with the pine that sobs and s ings 
Illumined by the lightning's livid 




34 *A Light Through the Storm. 

And see her folding in her arms Despair, 

Poor trembling sister, shrinking at the peel 

Of thunder crashing till the pine trees reel. 

Thou knowest I never sought thee, Solitude, 

In thy wild fits of desolation rude, 

Alone with no companion save the forms 

Of uncouth spirits revelling in storms; 

But thou hast caught me in thy chilling chains, — 

Enwoven me with darkness, and the pains 

Of phrenzied sorrow, miserable one. 

Oh, would thy bitter passion but outrun 

Its lonely broodings, and dispel the grief 

That festers at my heart without relief. 

II. The Vale of Tears. 
Some sound of murmurous wailing and of woe, 
Of lamentations in an ebb and flow 
As boundless as the ocean, fills the air, 
Halting at every round of its despair. 
I pause upon the rim of that dark vale, 
Its damp exuberance of grief inhale, 
Its darkness note, and mark each shapeless shade 



*A Soul's Wanderings. 35 

That wanders restless as a cavalcade 

For plunder, prowling in the dead of night. 

Oh misery ! I weep at their sad plight. 

The cypress points its fingers to the ground, 

And deep amid the gloom the howlet's sound 

In ullulations quavers in my ear. 

Oh bird of night, your grewsome tones I fear, 

Wierd harbinger of woe. Your flight so still 

I fear amid the cypress dark and chill. 

Lo, as I cried, from out the blackness vast, 

A huge misshapen spectre glided past — 

An owl, formless, white. With phrenzied leap 

I sprang upon its back, and down the steep 

Went floating breathlessly as in a trance. 

Now Lord preserve us from the fiends that dance 

Amid that vale of tears. I could not tell 

Their forms distorted by the miracle 

Of sorrow deep engraved, but well I knew 

How madly and how lustily they flew 

About me, weeping tears of blood that showed 

Vermilion drops, which through the darkness glowed 



2)6 zA Light Through the Storm. 

Like dripping molten beads of burning lead. 
I veiled my eyes. O God, their hearts, too, bled ! 
And yet they died not ; but I seemed to die, 
Fainting and falling through the eternal sky. 

III. Consolation. 
Faint tones of murmuring gladness haunt my ear, 
Of maiden laughter mingled with the dear 
Glad liquid-throated songs of birds aglow 
With love's fond passion in a world of woe; 
I see the misty green of woodland trees, 
The paradise of sun on dreamy leas, 
The gentle flowers beaming at my side, 
The stream so restful in its ceaseless glide; 
And this is life that whispers to my heart 
Its secret joy in tones which scarce impart 
The rush of passion swelling through my frame? 
The past alone my phrenzied woe may claim, 
For joy and light are pulsing through the air, 
And Melancholy seeks her sombre lair ; 
But oh, with sick forebodings I upstart, 
And palpitations strain my throbbing heart. 



zA Soul's Wanderings. 37 

Have I indeed escaped the vale of tears? 

Like memories of hell the past appears 

With all its wondrous woe. The past ! the past ! 

It follows me like leaves upon the blast, 

But follows me in vain, for now I see 

The light and beauty of eternity, 

The never-ending melodies that tell 

Of life, and love's surpassing miracle, 

So love eternal now will shape my theme, 

To murmur with its cadence mid my dream, 

To sound in rapture through the checkered day, 

Reaching at deeper strains of harmony. 



3 8 zA Light Through the Storm. 



SONG. 

Now read me well 

Ye demoiselle 

With th' golden coronal, 

What fairy band 

In all the land 
Has spun, so fine and well, 

The strands of gold 

That clasp and hold 
My heart with their magic spell. 

Oh demoiselle, 

I noted well 

Thine ear like an ocean shell ; 

How large and true 

Thine eyes of blue, 
And thy voice like a silver bell. 

I walked at thy side, • 

Ah my blessed bride, 
My own sweet demoiselle. 



The Everlasting Promise. 39 




THE EVERLASTING PROMISE. 

In the music and the mystery that trembles in the 

soul, 
With its endless depths of longing, with its woes 

beyond control, 
With its fathomless abysses where the spirit loves 

to dwell, 
With its multi-modulations that have caught me in 

their spell, 
I have studied some forgotten, some forbidden 

thought or sign, 
That will show the inner meaning of this citadel 

divine. 

There is hid the joy of ages, and the sorrow of 
to-day, 



4o *A Light Through the Storm. 

Infant hopes are softly sleeping in the arms of chill 
Dismay; 

In the weird palimpsest figured, stand the monu- 
ments of time, 

Crumbling to forgotten glory in their solitude 
sublime; 

Stand the promises of aeons with their glories yet 
unborn, 

With their triumphs and their troubles from the 
bleeding ages torn. 

Deep amid the soul's seclusion, I have dallied lone 
and long, 

I have heard its murmured music swelling to trium- 
phant song, 

Song that permeates its being, harmonies that live 
and grow, 

Winding into subtler feelings, blending into love 
and woe, 

Melting into deeper strivings toward the boundless 

love we feel, 
Bursting into raptured paeons of the one supreme 

ideal. 



Spring Song. 41 



SPRING SONG. 

Oh the gladsome onrushing 

Of birds in the Spring, 
And the loosed waters gushing, 

When every live thing 
Finds a tongue for rejoicing, 

And each silent clod 
Upsprings, and is voicing 

The bounty of God. 

With the butterfly's slipping 

Dull garments of sleep, 
The swallow's light dipping, 

The squirrel's free leap; 
See, the chestnut is budding, 

The wind-flowers throng, 
While the bobolink's flooding 

The air with his song. 



42 



zA Light Through the Storm. 




YOUTH AND AGE. 

In youth love shimmers like the vaulted bow, 
In age more like the waning moon doth show. 

In fitful youth a sudden beauty gleams, 
In waxing age a dimming glory streams. 

Youth catches at the shadows of a ray, 
Age watches the eternal in its play. 

But youth outgrows its fervor year by year, 
And age goes tottering onward to its bier. 

The world moves onward, upward. Youth and age 
Mere phantoms prove in life's eternal page. 



Did Christ Once Walk the Earth? 



DID CHRIST ONCE WALK THE EARTH? 

Did Christ once walk the earth, and did he say 

" Love one another" ? 
And did those words confront you on your way, 

And did you smother 
Within your darkly brooding breasts the sign ? 

Oh selfish mortals ! 
Spurning the essence of the true divine, 

And heaven's blest portals ! 

Could we but write upon the zenith sky 

These words abiding, 
We would not see the haggard care-worn eye, 

All faith deriding. 
Come, come, my brothers, write upon your hearts 

This God-sent token, 
Blaze it upon the sky, in homes, in marts, — 

The spell is broken. 



44 *A Light Through the Storm, 



A FLEETING VISION. 

In the gloom of the night, 

In the white-gray light 

Of the moon big and round, 

With no murmur of sound, 

A mighty form gleamed 

Where the wannish light streamed, - 

A man huge and stark 

As he loomed thro' the dark, 

With each muscle at strain 

In a tension of pain. 

One knee touched the earth, 

And his huge body's girth 

Was ribbed with bands 

Of tough fibered strands. 

On his neck was a stone, 

His firm lips checked a moan; 

He was motionless, still; 



A Fleeting Vision. 45 

Not a twitch, not a thrill 
Showed the vigor of life — 
Proved the depth of his strife. 
*' What is strength ? What is might ? ' ' 
I cried at the sight. 
Then the night wrapped the form 
In the mist of the storm. 



w 



THE NEW DEMOCRACY. 

Hammers are pounding, and forges are hot with fire; 
Voices are sounding, and swelling higher, higher; 
Something is building daily throughout the land, — 
Deep in the soil its broad foundations stand. 

Workmen unceasing, what structure do you rear ? 
Toilers increasing, what labor keeps you here ? 
Voices replying pierce the sky above, — 
' ' The new democracy of truth and love. ' ' 



4 6 



*A Light Through the Storm. 




STONES FOR BREAD. 

" Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will 
he give him a stone?" Matthew, vii : 9. 

Stones for bread, stones for bread, 
We are giving them every day, 

Stones for bread and a turf for the dead 
Are the riches we give away. 

It is words of stone for the bread of love, 
It is stones for the bread of life, 

It is churches of stone for the God above, 
For stones in this world are rife. 



But oh my heart, it is bread, not stones, 
That keeps you still beating true, 

And oh my soul, it is love that atones 
For the evil things we do. 



The Age Enchained. 47 



THE AGE ENCHAINED. 

AN ALLEGORY. 

Hist! the dawning! the light as it startles the 

darkness! 
The ghost dance of vapors that shroud the grim 

starkness 
Of wierd stalking spectres — the waning of visions 
Enwrapped in the vestment of black which im- 
prisons 
Their lonesome assembly in conclaves nocturnal! 
See morning faint struggle from regions supernal, 
As it blanches the moon to a pallider gleaming, 
And trembles and glows to more palpable meaning. 
Hist again! 'tis the sound of the seraph-throng 

winging 
Athwart the effulgence of morning, and flinging 
Sweet scattering melodies light from their pinions — 
Fair sun-gods just sprung from Apollo's dominions. 



4 8 zA Light Through the Storm. 

How the clammy cold spectres of night shrink and 

shiver, 
And cower and slink to the brink of the river, 
And sink in its pools and its slimes there to wallow 
Secure from the gaze of the fair god Apollo. 
With mystical music and timorous ringing 
Of harmonies vibrant, now soaring, now clinging 
Upon their light garments, the spirit throng surges 
Where saffron ethereal with roseate merges, 
'Till the fair flashing morning glints crisply the 

flowing 
Free lines of their figures with radiance glowing. 
Upon the top crag of a mountain, tense gazing 
Amid the flushed mist of the orient blazing, 
And scanning the migrants of morning appearing, 
A seraph is poised, as if suddenly veering 
From loftier flights he awaited the coming 
Of morning's attendants with music and humming. 
A seraph! how nobly he stands with lips parted, 
Blue eyed, from whose luminous vision there darted 
Profound understanding. It seemed that his seeing 



The Age Enchained. 49 

Could pierce to the innermost essence of being, 
And nourish his fancy with mystical story 
Supreme 'mid the tramp of time's vanishing glory. 
Untrammelled he seemed by clay's petty confinings, 
Pure soul-stuff imprisoned by gentle entwinings 
Of palpable aether. But oh the unyielding 
Of awful necessity, pitiless wielding 
The lash and the leash for the curbing and cramping 
Of mortals and angels. Now fretfully tramping 
He bends his fair pinions, intent upon sailing 
The radiant aether, but all unavailing 
His flutterings frantic. The fair host of Helios 
Was piercing the blue like the white-bodied alba- 
tross. 
Oh the stinging of madness when strivings are 

thwarted, 
And the phrenzy of sadness when hopes are 

aborted — 
The hopeless surrender, the languid upgiving 
Of profitless effort. The woe of still living 
Alone and imprisoned ! Forlorn and exhausted 



50 zA Light Through the Storm. 

The angel bent low on the ground chill and frosted, 
With gloom-sunken features, and gazed at the 

dimming 
Of heaven's attendants, his weary eyes brimming 
And fair wings bedraggled. With silent lamenting 
Droop-headed he pondered, his soul scarce con- 
senting 
Endurance of bondage, while dimmer and dimmer 
He caught the far voices, and glanced at the 

glimmer 
Of flickering whiteness, so rapidly melting 
Amid the blue void where the sun rays were pelting. 
As motionless, chilly, and white in his station, 
He stooped on the crag, like a marble creation 
By Angelo struck in a moment of rapture 
He seemed, — this poor soul in the woe of his 

capture. 
The blue arching canopy wide stretched above him, 
Around him the rocks with no creature to love him, 
Below him the silence hung- wide as il never 
The air had discovered that echoes may sever 



The Age Enchained. 51 

The stillness, and rend the vast void with the voices 
That leap toward the heavens while each heart 

rejoices. 
How long thus in silence he lingered., what measure 
Can mark, for a heart in distress is a treasure 
Too sacred to gauge by the hours that vanish, 
In pitiless agony striving to banish 
The soul from itself. But the torture of waiting 
Fell away in a bound of the heart high elating, 
And the seraph looked up to a voice. Oh, how 

tender 
Yet strange the cold air the dear tones seemed to 

render : 
'Why mourn thus, O seraph, alone and forsaken, 
Who art thou, and why have thy fellows all shaken 
Their pinions afar from this pinnacle dreary ? 
Art tired of fanning the blue, that so weary 
You rest here alone?" What fair creature had 
spoken? 

Was she witch or enchantress arrived with some 
token 



52 <tA Light Through the Storm. 

Of hell's foul enchantments, or angel celestial? 
He gazed in her eyes but no trace of terrestrial 
Taint could discover. "And knowest thou, maiden 
That comest with heaven-sent melodies laden, 
Not to whom thou art speaking? Of spirit forms 

dreary, 
The starry host numbers, none other so weary 
Of strife unavailing. World spirit undaunted, 
The age of the present am I, ever vaunted 
By men and immortals ; the age that created 
The wonders of science, whereat all elated 
With wild exclamations of wonder upstarted, 
And gazed at my form with a strange joy that darted 
And surged through my soul with a wild rush of 

madness, 
' The world is all mine ! ' I exclaimed in my 

gladness." 
Then his hearer compassionate looked, and more 

tender 
To witness his woe, for his tale did engender 
Sad thoughts at beholding him writhing in sorrow. 



The Age Enchained. 53 

"Cease grieving," she cried, "and have trust in 

the morrow." 
"So high," he returned, "mid the skies I have 

wandered , 
Such hopes high exultant in joy I have squandered, 
That ill can I brook this restraint. I have captured 
The lightning's fierce flames and have chained them 

enraptured 
To drag me through space and through thought. I 

have crumbled 
The rocks where the earthquake fierce trembled 

and rumbled, 
And extracted all secrets and every strange tiding 
That nature had whispered to earth when confiding. 
The stars I have measured and scanned, and each 

flower 
Have pulled to dissect, and have left as a dower 
To ages forthcoming, the grand consummation 
Of intricate knowledge of each deviation 
In matter and law in the universe — tested 
All powers and properties nature has vested 



54 ^ Light Through the Storm. 

In tangible substance. Elated, inspired 
By vaster achievements than ever had fired 
The pride of immortals, I swept at the flashes 
Of sun-fire hurled from the orb as it dashes 
Supreme mid the universe, fiercely impelling 
Its phrenzy of light from its spirit indwelling. 
When lo, in an atmosphere icy and frigid 
I found myself struggling, my limbs stiff and rigid, 
My soul rent with anguish, a burning desire 
Aflame in my breast, in my heart a wild fire 
To struggle away to the seraph-throng dancing 
Upon the fair brink of the morning, nor glancing 
One pitying glance in their journey elysian 
Upon this cold spire, my doom and my prison." 
The seraph had ended. A silence appalling 
Upon the drear mountain was sinking and falling, 
Like life-blood that drips in the lull of a battle, 
Or the gasps of a maniac ceasing his prattle. 
Each sun-ray beat hotly and burned as it dartled, 
And the icicles trembled and dripped as if startled 
From slumber. O God ! break the stillness, the stifle, 



The Age Enchained. 55 

The choking of silence — some fly-buzz or trifle 

Of bird-note to show that your voice still remembers 

The love and the hope which your promise en- 
genders. 

At length spoke the maiden, the seraph scarce 
breathing, 

With eyes towards her brow and its halo en- 
wreathing : 

1 1 You have pondered the earth and the stars ever 
seeking 

For knowledge and truth, while your fair hands are 
reeking 

With carnage and slaughter, with rapine and pillage. 

You have murdered the plow-man and snatched 
from his tillage 

The bread he had won from the soil. Ah, you 
tremble, 

Poor spirit, still listen, I dare not dissemble." 

Then the maiden seemed taller, her fair figure surging 

With arms lifted high, and a voice that seemed 



56 tA Light Through the Storm. 

Its tones with the tempest, the peal of the thunder, 
Or the shock of the breakers that roar in their 

wonder: 
"Look within you, within you, within you," 'twas 

crying, 
The voice of the maiden receding and dying, 
When up sprang the seraph and clutched her, 

beseeching, 
'Oh, leave me not thus when my soul is just reaching 
Some faint understanding." The goddess more 

vivid, 
Looked down on his countenance pallid and livid ; 
"Ah seraph," she answered, "come, follow my 

leading, 
I' 11 take you within your own soul, where the bleeding 
Of anguish has cramped you." Then lighter and 

lighter 
The seraph's wings trembled, and tighter and tighter 
He clung to her garments. In eddies mad whirling 
They plunged through tumultuous tempests fierce 

curling 



The Age Enchained. 57 

In serpentine writhings. The vapors of battle, 
With groaning of armies, and musketries' rattle 
Assailed their faint senses with sulphurous burning 
Of missiles of hell and destruction — the spurning 
Of life — the wild carnage, the blood and the sorrow 
Of sad nations wailing the dead on the morrow. 
Oh the wailing, the woe, and the wild lamentation 
When science is hurled at the heart of a nation, 
With cruelty, craft, and the cunning invention 
Of tools of destruction, — the ceaseless retention 
Of hell among men ! But the seraph is falling 
Still faster through space. Hark! what voice was 

that calling ? 
Starvation that stalked through the land with its 

shrieking, 
The laughter of banqueters merriment seeking 
In mad dissipation. Now louder and quicker 
The cries clash together — the leaping flames flicker, 
And the clanging of bells in tumultuous clangor 
Sounds forth the wild threat of grim anarchy's anger. 
"Oh spare me, fair goddess," the angel implored her. 



58 zA Light Through the Storm. 

' ' Dost quail thus, O seraph, while still on the border ? 
I'd show you foul slimes where the gentle soul 

sickens 
To breathe the pollution, — where every taint 

quickens 
The spirit degraded, to crime — ever sinking 
In cycles contaminate; draining and drinking 
The vice and the woe from the pools that surround 

them, 
And cursing the state that was meant to confound 

them." 
She ceased, and a darkness and silence onrushing 
Now mantled them deep in its folds, like the gushing 
Of chaos, eternity, fate, or oblivion, — 
A famine of light, the fair hope that we live on. 
When lo, from the blackness there came a faint 

playing 
Of light and of mslody, trembling and straying, 
Uncertain and groping, then clearer and nearer. 
Oh light ! blessed music ! no tokens are dearer 
Of hope and eternity. Brighter and brighter 



The Age Enchained. 59 

The rays glowed above him, and lighter and lighter 
His soul leaped to meet them, for there in the 

glowing, 
Stood the form of his guide with her countenance 

showing, 
Bent upward to God, the ideal of all being, — 
The good and the true which the earthly in seeing 
Creates for itself. Oh, the light and the strumming 
Of harps, for the good and the true is forthcoming. 



Y 



JOY AND SORROW. 

I see Joy clinging fast to Sorrow's breast, 

Pressing her lips against the dark maid's brow, 

Like sisters with the self-same pain oppressed, 
Exchanging love for love and vow for vow; 
For so the fates these maidens did endow, 

Each in the other's love supremely blest. 



6o 



zA Light Through the Storm. 




SONG. 

Sing, oh sing, bright warbler of June, 

Thy soul's in thy song, and the sun's in thy tune ; 

Sing in the morning and sing at the noon, 

To thy mate on her nest, 

With her eggs hotly pressed 

To her quick panting breast, 

Sing, oh sing, thy love to attest. 

Sing, oh sing, bright maiden of mine, 

With a threnody mellow of love to combine, 

Sing in the morning thy music divine, 

My fancies to cheer 

With thy harmonies dear, 

In thy silver tones clear, — 

Sing, oh sing, tho' thy song cost a tear. 



Dreaming on the Sea. 61 



DREAMING ON THE SEA. 

While the silver moonbeams glisten on the solemn 

heaving sea, 
I am looking, filled with longing, o'er the waters 

love for thee. 
As I watch the scintillations as they scatter on the 

tide, 
With a strange unearthly meaning in the stillness 

of their glide, 
I am sure that you are near me, and I strain my 

eyes afar, 
Scanning through the scope of heaven every pale 

and trembling star. 

Then I hear across the water, music wafted from 
the shore — 

From the shore of years receding I shall travel 
never more. 

But the music swells and lingers in the stilly mid- 
night sky, 



62 zA Light Through the Storm. 

And it holds my soul enraptured in a dim 

lipothymy. 
Then I know that you have wandered from that 

shore of long ago, 
Then I know that you have followed me to share 

my joy and woe. 



Y 



TO A WINTER WREN. 

Merry winter waif light-hearted, 

Jaunty midget clad in brown, 
Autumn leaf with life imparted, 

Spirit braving winter's frown: 
From the tangled brush quick darting 

Like a flash of sunny glee, 
Briskly chirping, gaily voicing 

Snatches of spring's melody — 
Thou art ceaselessly imparting 
Gladness with your light rejoicing. 



"Ballad of Annabel I. 6$ 



BALLAD OF ANNABELL. 

Fair Annabell was a-weeping 

In the cold still hush of night, 
When all save the stars were sleeping, 

And they half hid in fright. 

And bitterly wept fair Annabell, 

And hotly her cheeks were burning, 

And her bosom heaved like the ocean's swell, 
With the woe of a mighty yearning. 

Oh why do you weep, sweet Annabell, 
When all the world is dreaming? 

And what is the shame you may not tell, 
That starts the hot tears streaming? 

And why do you clasp your breast so tight, 
And sigh and think of the morrow? 



64 zA Light Through the Storm. 

And why do you start in a phrenzied fright 
From the woe of your burning sorrow ? 

But the morrow came with its hurrying sweep, 

And Annabell walked by the sea; 
She watched the white sails far on the deep, 

And thought of their destiny. 

She saw them melt in the misty blue, 
Like the joy in her own young breast; 

She thought of the love which is good and true, 
And her anguish more deeply pressed. 

The waves looked cool as they curled and broke 

On the rocks below her feet, 
And her panting heart in a moment awoke 

To a glow of fever heat. 

She paused on the brink, then she leaped in the 
sea, 

And the waves swept over her head, 
With never a thought of the misery 

That slept in their turbulent bed. 



Oh to Catch the Soul at its Start. 65 



OH TO CATCH THE SOUL AT ITS 
START. 

Oh to catch the soul at its start, 

To follow it year by year, — 
To open the walls of the heart, 

On its red rich life to peer; 
To trace the flagging pace, 
To gaze on the ripening face, 
To watch the mind as it grows 
Through its trials and woes, 
Through its moments of shame and of wrong, 
Like the discord that jars in the song, — 
It is this that we live for and cherish, 
It is thus that we strengthen and nourish 
Our hearts with love's plenteous joy, — 
Thus our friendship we yield and employ. 



66 zA Light Through the Storm. 



A VISION OF SOLITUDE. 

The night was softly sinking 

Round the mountains dim and vast, 
As I sat in silence thinking 

O'er the visions of the past, — 

O'er the learning of the sages, 

With their depth of wisdom keen, 

And the misery of ages 
Rotting in its grave serene. 

And a legend, dimly hidden, 
Quickened in my lonely brain, 

Haunting me with fears unbidden — 
With a dull unending pain. 

In a forest still and dreary 
(So I learned the tale of eld), 

Walked a figure, frail and weary, 
In the awful woodland spelled : 




WALKED A FIGURE FRAIL AND WEARY. 



zA Vision of Solitude. 69 

Walked a maiden seeking ever, 
As she glided through the wood, 

Joy and hope and love which never 
Came to glad her maidenhood. 

Should a mortal chance to meet her 

In her forest fastness lone, 
And enraptured stay to greet her, 

She would claim him for her own; 

She would lure him like the glimmer 

Of the lights in wooded fen, 
Ever fading dimmer, dimmer, 

In the darkness of the glen. 

While I dreamed, as night was falling, 

I recalled a maiden fair 
Who had startled me with calling 

Weirdly through the woodland air. 

Then a creeping dread o'ertook me, 
Thrilled me at the grewsome thought, 



70 zA Light Through the Storm. 

Suddenly my hope forsook me 
And my life with woe was fraught. 

I must follow, follow, follow, 

That lone figure through the gloom, 

I must wander towards the hollow 
Silence of the empty tomb. 

Ah, but should I overtake her, 
Pain would from my being fly, 

Should I from her trance awake her, 
She would bear me to the sky. 



Krai I. 



7i 



KRALL. 

A huge unwieldy fellow 

Was Krall sprawled out on the grass, 
With fat face red and mellow, 

And hair in a tumbled mass. 

He lay on the sunny meadow 

With an idle empty gaze. 
Till the sinking sun had shed low 

Its feeble evening rays. 

For he liked the hot sun's feeling, 
And he liked the soft grass bed, 

And his stupid soul was reeling 
In the bliss he coveted. 

But, just as the sun was sinking, 

As he lifted his logy frame, 
And his half-shut eyes were blinking 

At the golden west's bright stain, 



72 <iA Light Through the Storm. 

A voice to his soul came stealing-, — 
His eyes were opened wide, 

And a strange unquiet feeling 
O'er his senses seemed to glide. 

The voice at his ear, low speaking, 
Said only the word ' c Awake ! " 

And Krall in the dark went seeking 
For the voice that to him spake. 

But he found no man in the gloaming, 
'"Twas the voice of God," he cried, 

And his frightened form went roaming 
O'er the country far and wide. 

Krall awoke from his hibernation — 
He awoke to a life of strain ; 

And the joy of a dead stagnation 
To his dawning soul seemed pain. 



Son":. 



73 



SONG. 

High oh! where the wild plums grow, 

And the cool streams flow 

From the mountain snow ; 

Where the wild rose fair 

And the maiden-hair 

Their love declare ; 

Where a nestling's call 

In the still forest hall, 

Or a petal's soft fall 

Breaks the silent spell 

Of the dreamy dell ; 

There I long to dwell, — 

There ! there ! 

In the pure free air, 

With no thought of care, 

Is the spot for me, 

So wild and free, 

With the woodland liberty. 



74 *A Light Through the Storm. 



A JOYOUS BAND. 

What joyous band comes dancing through the grove, 
Making the arched trees ring out with song, 

While every trellised ivy, interwove 

In airy lacework, dips its garlands long 

To fondle and delay the golden tressed throng, 

And all the birds cease warbling, one by one, 
To hear such blissful music sweet and strong, 

Which can the very lark's sweet notes outrun, 

Sweeping in airy rapture towards the blessed sun. 

Full modestly, all clad in robes of white 
Folding about their bodies gracefully, 

With joined hands and looks of free delight, 

They sport and revel 'neath the greenwood tree, 
Mocking the toil of honey-ladened bee, 

Or sipping nectar from the cream cup's rim, 
Enraptured with extreme felicity, — 

Chasing the sunbeams 'mid the shadows dim, 

And filling Joy's rich-patterned chalice to the brim. 




WITH JOINED HANDS AND LOOKS OF FREE DELIGHT. 



zA Joyous Band. 77 

Thus revelling, with nimble-footed tread, 
They meet upon their way a crystal pond 

Sparkling and bubbling from its oozy bed, 

Where wavy reeds and rushes swayed and conned 
Their slender stems, each like a fairy wand 

Rippling its image o'er the glassy sheet. 
Whereat the ladies each with musings fond 

Stooped to survey, in frolicsome conceit, 

The swan-like image swimming from their dainty 
feet. 

They saw reflected Love and free delight, 

The maiden Hope all clad in splendor gay, 
Fair Chastity in robes of snowy white, 

And Charity, sweet maid that shuns display; 

But one lone lady stood in stern array, 
And saw upon the pool, with look of scorn, 

The haughty glance and poise of proud Dismay, 
And Envy's venomed gaze that rests forlorn, 
Of all its native loveliness so rudely shorn. 



7 8 zA Light Through the Storm. 

Ah lady with the envious glance of ire, 
The pool wherein you gaze is very clear, 

The lush green reeds are tipped with golden fire, 
The sun is full of love, for God is near, 
And all your sisters' hearts with goodly cheer 

Are warm and thankful for the blissful boon. 
Sing, sing, ye maidens all, with accents dear, 

The plenteous glories of life's sun-dight noon, 

And let dark Envy mope beneath the wan-sick moon. 



The New Teleology. 



79 




THE NEW TELEOLOGY. 

Nothing is meaningless, nothing is vain, 

In this big world of promise — this wide sphere of 

pain — 
Every pang that we suffer as daily we plod, 
Is lifting our spirits in anguish to God. 

We climb through adversity ceaselessly higher, 
We mount on each lowly unworthy desire, 
The beast that possessed us through ages of night 
Now trembles and quails in the soul's blessed light. 

Through our lowly beginnings we grasp the full 

plan, 
As the ape chatters idly and teaches the man, 



80 z/1 Light Through the Storm. 

And the man gravely ponders that angels may 

learn, 
For we climb on the states that we conquer and 

spurn. 



Y 



AT SEA IN THE TROPICS. 

Softly and gently, fair sea, is thy motion, 
Pulsing and throbbing and murmuring low, 

Whispering tenderly love and devotion, 

Patient, enduring through each ebb and flow. 

Fair is the light that thy still wave caresses, 
And rich is the blue that thy being reveals, 

Deep is the longing thy murm'ring confesses, 
Impassioned the heart which thy calmness 
conceals. 



zA Universal Prayer, 81 



A UNIVERSAL PRAYER. 

Eternal Love, Eternal Joy and Life ! 

A world of sorrow deep in ceaseless strife, 

Battling with constant care's unending pain, 

Repeats in woe its agonizing plain, 

And calls Thy name again. 

Oh Lord on high, 

But hears no answering voice come thundering 

from the sky 
Its wing6d triumph or consoling love — 
Words like an incense altar streaming from above, 
Or like the downy flight of snow-plumed dove, 
Or seraph choir humming chords that strain 
Impassioned joy from bursting mortal pain. 
Our earthly frettings, vain discordant toil, 
Tinctured with graceless deeds of rude turmoil, 
Have quite forgot the sound Thy accents make, 
Whisp' ring their stern command in words that shake 



82 zA Light Through the Storm. 



The soul's most secret fane with awe inspired, 

Breathing its lambent breath till joy is fired, 

And leaps to join its God with gladsome hymning, 

Tracing in song the hopes its joy are limning. 

So David sang. of old, 

Striving Thy living word to hold, 

But we, O Lord, are waxing overbold, 

And scorn Thy word divine, 

Seeking to intertwine, 

In coronals of beauty's garlands fair, 

The wavering strands of lust's supreme despair, 

And worship this alone, 

Placed apotheosized on gilded throne. 

But oh the pity, thus to see 

Man sink from his divinity, 

Catching at empty baubles in his fall, 

Lifting his futile voice to call 

Upon the stilted mockery of Thy life, 

Oh thou eternal God within the strife, 

Thou God revealing Thy unchanging form 

Dimly though certain midst life's busy storm. 



zA Universal Prayer. 



83 



And oh the pity! oh the pain! 

To see how paltry minions seek to gain, — 

By pious formal vows and servile show, 

By hollow words and whining plaints of woe, 

By mould-encrusted forms that breed 

The factious bitterness of creed — 

Thy love eternal, O Almighty One ! 

Sometimes despair my hope would quite outrun 

Were I less sure of Thy supreme intent, 

Struggling and heaving towards the firmament, 

Beaming in rapture where Thy gaze is bent, 

Thrilling my soul with love's sublime content. 




84 zA Light Through the Storm. 



TO A ROBIN. 

How cheerily thy warbling even lay 

Comes floating blithely tuned to amorous Spring, 
When trembling passion moves in everything ; 

How frank thy warbling sounds at shut of day 

When budding lawns slope greenly on to May, 
And early moths start forth on flutt' ring wing. 
Spring harbinger, thy constant carolling 

Fills me with joy when woodland paths I stray. 

Oh, robin, robin, when the autumn chill 

Comes blustering from the north o'er summer lea, 
And summer songsters press to warmer clime, 

Your brave sweet call still rings from leafless hill. 
Dear bird, I love thee for thy constancy, 
And for the mellow sweetness of thy chime. 




u 

o 

£> "53 
M B 

o -2 

w c 

H a 

D 
O 

P 



For William Keith. 



FOR WILLIAM KEITH. 
Speak out, ye fervent moods of mighty men, 
Articulate thy soul with brush or pen; 
Awake in kindred breasts the thoughts and moods 
That brood about thy awful solitudes; 
Create thyself in forms that cannot die, 
In shapes that scorn a transient destiny; 
Reveal that inner light which God has sent, 
Trembling and glowing midst thy firmament, — 
Thyself a world, a universe of soul, 
Clinging to God as thy completed whole, 
Trembling to know thy mission, vast, sublime, 
Floating upon the rushing wings of time. 

O painter, from thy soul's secretest deep, — 
There where the weird immortal glories keep 
Their mystic shadowy forms remotely still, 
Glut thy unquenching mood with thoughts that thrill 
Thyself and all the wondering world beside, 
Awed by the beauty so serenely wide. 



88 <tA Light Through the Storm. 

Infuse thyself with goodness fair, and joy, 

Supreme above the morbid world's alloy 

Of discontent and trouble. Like the swallow, 

Soar mid a universal calm, and follow 

Thy own light winging fancy through the air, 

Secure of light and joyance brooding there. 

Let no confining fancies check the flow 

Of beauty falling on a world of woe, 

Like rain upon a parching summer plain, 

Or like some sweet, melodious, speaking strain 

Of music to a maniac's soothed ear, 

Spelled from the burning frenzy of his fear. 

But suffer not Content's insiduous charm 

Thy constant growth's unending reach to harm. 

Sure of thy mighty mission, toil and strain 

Through discontent, through crushing care and 

pain, 
Until the sunset glory of the Lord 
Bursts round thee and the world thou hast adored. 



The Return of Spring in the Mountains. 89 



F — S~l= 




THE RETURN OF SPRING IN THE 
MOUNTAINS. 

When winter's grasp fast- clenched on mead and rill 
Grows feeble and uncertain; when the air 
Breathes balmily of spring's returning care, 

When circling eagle moults his battered quill, 

And screams amid the clouds; when wintry hill 
Is dressed in tender green ; when every rare 
Frail blossom beams as if of joy aware, 

And merry frogs are piping loud and shrill: 

Then Nature speaks in love's bewitching strain, 
Fondling the fuzzy catkins by the stream; 

Coaxing the robin to his song again, — 
The forest rings with music like a dream 

Of minstrelsy in days of olden time, 

And hope leaps forth at spring's melodious chime. 



90 zA Light Through the Storm. 



THE VOICES OF THE STORM. 

Through the gloom and the tempest that wails on 
the sea, 

Through the bleakness and blackness of night, 
Wild voices are crying and calling to me, 

As they veer in impetuous flight. 

At their shouting and shrieking I shudder in dread, 

From their frenzy and fury I quail, 
From the cries of the merciless wandering: dead, 

With the wild swaying waters that wail. 

I hear the shrill sorrow of sirens that sing- 

Their fury of pitiless love, 
And the deep intonations of spirits that cling 

To the shreds of the black clouds above. 

They are calling me, all these mad ghosts of the 
storm, 
And I falter to see them draw near ; 



The Voices of the Storm. 91 

I glance at each shapeless unthinkable form, 
As I see its weird figure appear. 

Weird wandering phantoms that wing with the gale, 
What dread should I feel from your cries ? 

For the terror of tempests can never assail 
The soul that its fury defies. 



Y 



ON SCIENCE. 

The limpid pregnant air and teeming earth, 
Incessant throbbing with the ceaseless birth 
Of myriad souls to mortal c— <-; 
The dark unfathomed wilaerness of sea, 
Peopled with scaly monsters huge and grim, 
Misshapen outcasts from the shallow rim 
Of ocean's boundless waste; the pulsing life 
In dancing sun-mote waging tiny strife — 
These universal wonders shape thy theme, 



92 *A Light Through the Storm. 

Phantasmal shadows through the brain that stream, 

Oh Science, heavenly oracle sublime, 

Thou child of progress and the march of time. 

Like some old sibyl, speaking words of lore, 

Thy lips hurl daily down the sounding shore, 

Of destinies' far reach, their prophet spell ; 

The world with strained ear hears the tale they tell; 

Awed, mystified with wonder and amaze, 

Upon thy revelations vast I gaze. 

I see the blinded stars in phrenzy spin, 

And listening catch their echoing heav'nly din; 

I see the quivering dance of atoms hurled, . 

In- pulse beats trembling 'midst an ordered world. 

All life, all shows, all shadows, all designs, 

All senseless clods, all souls with sentient minds, 

Display their meaning, op'ning every cell, 

And whisper secrets strange as wizard spell 

By magic wrought in childhood's artless time, 

The fairy scenes that fade at rugged prime 

Of sturdy age. Oh Science, sweeping high, 

I see you straining through the boundless sky 



On Science. 93 

Of unimagined wonders dim and far, 
Spanning the universe from star to star, 
Tracing the struggling life from soul to soul, 
And crowning life's sublime completed whole 
With love's immortal coronal to thrill 
A world of joy with God's completed will. 
Oh Science, ministrant of God divine, 
Such mighty works of boundless worth art thine, 
Such labors claim thy never-ceasing care, 
Forbidding respite, scorning weak despair ; 
But oh, full deeply ponder o'er thy task, 
And deep within thy soul the secret ask, — 
The hope, the light, the joy, the eager life, 
Mounting supremest through the hottest strife ; 
The love, the passion, worship's endless call, 
What truths are these that startle and appall — 
What law compelling conscience with its might 
To point in silence ever toward the right? 
Delve, Science, deeply 'mid thy heaven-sent soul, 
And clasp eternally the sacred whole. 



94 zA Light Through the Storm. 



A BALLAD OF THE CITY. 

An old man feeble and worn with care, 

Lived in a cellar — cold, dingy, and bare; 

On a pallet of straw he lay 

All the livelong, weary day — 

It was in the great city 

Where people are never taught pity. 

One day a child in his room appeared, 

A pale-faced boy in the gutter reared, 

And he pitied the half-starved man 

So thin and old and wan — 

In the great, grim city, 

There was one who had learned to pity. 

He pitied the man with a beard so white, 

And he loved him and clung to the thin hands tight, 

He shared his woe and earned the bread 

That kept them from the dead; 

Ah yes, the great city, 

Held one heart that knew how to pity. 



zA TSattad of the City. 95 

He earned their bread until work was gone, 

Then he stole their bread, for work there was none, 

He stole their bread, and the jail 

No pity felt for his tale — 

It was in the great city 

Where people are never taught pity. 

The old man waited through night and day, 

He longed for his boy with a sick dismay, 

But Death appeared in his stead, 

And he lay with the pauper dead — 

It was in the great city 

Where people are never taught pity. 



96 zA Light 'Through the Storm. 




DEATH'S DOMAIN. 

There is a land of wizard spell, 

A dreary land where monsters dwell, 

A wild, forbidding dell, 

With the gloomy darkness round 

Broken by no human sound, 

But the wailing and the shrieking 

Of a host of spirits seeking 

Through the blackness of the night, 

In their trailing robes of white, 

Seeking light, light, light. 

A loathsome form is ruler here, 
And every spirit thrills with fear 
When they feel him near : 
Huge and black, his shapeless side, 



Death's Domain, 97 

Cyclops-like, with threatening stride 
Wildly through the forest stalking, 
Mumbling in his aimless talking, 
With his big eyes glowing red, 
Burning in his shaggy head, 
Filling every heart with dread. 

Lo, a burst of livid fire 
Wavers like a floating spire, 
Shooting ever higher; 
Every shrieking ghost is dashing 
Towards the burning and the flashing, 
Swarming with uncanny crying, 
Rustling, straining, struggling, vying 
Each to touch the flaming light 
With their hands, so skinny white. 
Oh, the dismal sight ! 

A crouching witch beside the flare, 
With her withered body bare, 
Watches, cat-like, from her lair, 
When the earth begins to groan, 



gS zA Light Through the Storm. 

And the giant seeks his own; 

Then the frantic spirits scatter, 

Far away their pinions clatter. 
" I am Death !" the monster cried; 
" Lust am I ! " the witch replied; 

While the giant clasped his bride. 



7 



REDEMPTION. 

Heavy-hearted hopes must falter 
Hourly at the smoking altar 
Of despairing time, forever 
Destined from ourselves to sever 
All we love and dearly cherish. 
Every thought we dream must perish 
Ere its fellow can attend us; 
Every gleam the fates can lend us 
Darkens when we reach to grasp it, 
Like the pall about a casket. 
Hush, my love, in this despairing, 



Redemption. 99 

While we mourning robes are wearing, 
Weeds of thought that cling about us, 
Ghastly garbs that mock and flout us, 
We forget, oh priceless treasure, 
Radiant love's undying measure ; 
We forget that in this living 
We are gladdest in the giving 
Of ourselves to something higher, 
Slowly mounting, tire by tire, 
On the reeking victims lying 
Underneath — our deeds implying 
Weakness or misguided vision. 
Oh my love, when you emprison 
My existence in your sighing, 
I can even laugh at dying, 
Knowing that our seeming parting 
Can be nothing but the starting 
Of our inner life's intention, 
Bursting from its crude convention, 
Leaping where anticipation 
Sees love's final consummation. 

LOFC. 



ioo zA Light Through the Storm. 



ODE ON SLEEP. 

Rude toil of day's distempered strife, 

Tempestuous vexings breeding care, 
Ambitidn's fretful plainings rife, 

Hope's combat waged with fell Despair: 
How like a brooding Sabbath morn 

Infused with holy calm and rest 
The wild-eyed woes of day are stilled 
At evening, when the silvery horn 

Gleams palely through the roseate west, 
And throbbing hearts with peace are filled. 

Then Somnus, dusky-winged boy, 

On tiptoe leaves his ebon lair. 
Beholding earth's, returning joy 

His poppies sweep the sighing air; 
Each creature, soothed by drowsy charm 

Of gently lapsing fancies' glide, 



Ode On Sleep. 101 

Nods dreamily with blissful sighs, 
While Slumber's gently folded arm 

Encircles tenderly his bride, — 
Oblivion dimming drooping eyes. 

Oh Sleep, most kind of all the host, 

That mantles round this mortal sphere 
Conspiring blessings, thou art most 

Beloved. Thy form is ever dear: 
For dost thou not convey the mind 

Beyond its dwelling cramped and dull, 
Op'ning the gates of fancies realm 
Where Morpheus revels unconfined, 

Where shades of wonder beautiful 
The soul enraptured overwhelm ? 



102 



zA Light Through the Storm. 




THOUGHTS FROM THE WILDERNESS. 

[On receiving a letter from London.] 

Peaceful and calm amid the wilderness, 

Shadowed with snow-tipped peaks against the 
sky, 
By limpid streamlets lulled from rude distress — 

Those restless cares that sleep, but never die — 
I watch the Spring's maturing loveliness 

Come trembling round me, haply breathing sigh 
on sigh. 

No rude distraction breaks the tranquil spell 

Where heavenly Nature smiles with beaming 
eye; 



Thoughts from the Wilderness. 103 

No shrill-voiced warning surges through the dell 
To strain the heart with sorrow's anguished 
sigh ; 
No tear-stained cheeks, no palsied hands to tell 
The listless fancy tales of cares too deep that 
lie. 

But all is beauteous, all is glad and fair; 

From every tree a bird trills forth his song; 
The lusty robin floods the morning air, 

The clanging blackbirds in melodious throng 
Are all too happy, reckless grown of care, 

The amorous circling hawk screams gaily loud 
and long. 

And flowers pave the ground with varied hue, 
The golden buttercup, the trilium pale, 

The hound' s-tongue's clustering stars of limpid 
biue, 
The dappled lily weeping in the vale; 

Primroses purple all the roadways strew — 
And all so silent, lovely, delicate and frail. 



104 <tA Light Through the Storm. 

Has all the world grown gentle, oh ye trees, 
Ye stately firs that dream in upper air ? 

Has life escaped the crushing miseries 

That left it weltering once in dark despair ? 

Has being climbed among the destinies 

Of souls girt round with dreams, where all is 
good and fair ? 



Hark ! hark ! be still, ye gaily singing bird, 
That I may catch the echo of a word 
That penetrates this mountain wilderness; 
A whisper of distress, 
Winging across the wild Atlantic sea. 

God, and can it be 
That life means misery ? 

Away ! away ! ye anguished wail, 

1 will not hear thy tale, 
Borne on the phrenzied gale 
To trouble me. 

Away ! away ! I say. 



Thoughts from the Wilderness. 105 

But thou wilt not away; 

Thy voice has come to stay 

Eternally ! 

Amid this western wild I hear the cry 

Of anguished souls that weep for liberty. — 

The restless cares of London's sordid din, 

The murky restlessness of sin 

Battling with poverty and vice and woe, 

The fevered hearts that glow, 

The toiler glaring from his grimy lair, 

The artisan oppressed with care, 

The beggar fawning for his bread, 

The restless thief with stealthy tread, 

The mother with her infant dead, 

And hope from every bosom fled : 

These are the times for anarchy 

To triumph over liberty — ■ 

To leap upon the blinded age 

With thirsty rage, 

And glut its individual hate. 

Then, when its crimson lust is satiate, 



io6 zA Light Through the Storm. 



'Twill see too late 

The blackened waste of ruined life 

Left desolate by fiendish strife. 

Come, come, ye voices ringing through the age 

So wild and strong, 

Enkindle in my heart such potent rage, 

And thrill my being with the mighty wrong 

Until it bursts to meaning in a song 

Burthened with woe and misery, 

With pitiful uncertainty, 

Invectives aimed at tyrant rule 

And scorn to crown time's apish fool, 

Clad in convention's mouldy dress, — 

With pity for distress, 

And love to comfort helplessness. 

Oh, love, love, love, thy very soothing name 

Fills me with hope and joy again, 

Thy very thought inspires a rapture sweet, 

Like tread of angel feet 

Threading the mazy clouds of night 

When stars shoot forth a sudden light 



Thoughts from the Wilderness. 107 

And seraphs wing their silent flight, — 

Peopling the desert wilderness of mind, 

Staggering so wearily and blind, 

With spectres of a glorious pageantry, 

With ardent shadows of reality, 

With glimpses of a far eternity, 

And God inspiring all this mighty phantasy. 



io8 *A Light Through the Storm. 



A SONG OF WORK. 

There is no idleness in all this moving world 

That lives and flourishes. 

For idleness is death, 

It nourishes 

Its lorn existence with the dying breath, 

It hovers spectre-like round tombs and graves, 

It lies in mouldy vaults and dank forgotten caves, 

With rotting skulls that crumble 'neath the hand. 

It skulks and falters thro' the living land, 

And ever cries and cries 

In its death-throe as it lies. 

But work and toil is life ! 

There's a glory in the strife, 

There's a vigor in the strain, 

There's a promise in the pain 

Of work, work, work ! 



zA Song of Work. 109 



Oh the men that never shirk 

Life's appointed task, 

And the women who ne'er ask 

If the work will ever end, — 

Oh the trees that never bend 

'Neath the pressure of the storm, 

Oh the lusty upright form, 

Oh the ever busy brain, 

Ever striving to attain 

More, more, more 

Of the world's unstudied lore ! 

Hear the anvil and the hammer 

How they bandy forth their clamor, 

Hear the ceaseless bells that ring, 

Hear the reapers toil and sing, — 

Hear the buzz and hum 

Of the engines, never dumb 

In the sawmill, with the shrilling 

Of the lumber 'neath the plane; 

It is crying out in pain 

That the heartless steel is killing, 



no tA Light Through the Storm. 

Killing every forest tree, 

Large and free. 

Hear the sailors making sail, 

Sing their chantey in the gale, 

As they pull, pull, pull, 

Till the flapping sail is full. 

See the clerk forever writing, 

See the business man inditing 

Letters that will make his fortune, 

While his creditors importune. 

All are busy — some with good and some with evil, 

Shrewd connivings of the devil 

Busy some with midnight revel, — 

Such is life — all incomplete and growing, 

Working, heaving, thrusting, throwing — 

Working out God's destined plan, 

Working for the betterment of man, 

Working through the aeons fierce and strong, 

Bursting forth in gladness and in song. 



Ode to *Death. 



in 




ODE TO DEATH. 

Inexorable goddess clad in night, 

Wan harbinger of woe and dismal fear, 

Thou to whose dusky pinions no delight 

Can conjure respite from compulsions drear ; 

How often to the feast, or lightsome glee 

Of moments over fraught with passion's spell, 
You stalk with ghastly stride and stand and gaze, 

So grim and pale, on one face fixedly, 

While every trembling guest, the meaning well 
Interprets as he starts in dread amaze. 



I fear thy sullen footfalls through the gloom, 
The lamentations thronging in thy train, 

The mournful journey to th' expectant tomb, 
The dreary progress back to life again: 



112 



zA Light Through the Storm. 



Thy sway is never ceasing in its spell ; 
Thy incompleted mission day by day, 
Augmented by the teeming life that springs 

From nature's boundless store, an endless knell 
Is sounding from the earth in sad dismay, 
While red eyes weep to feel the pain it brings. 

No, Death, not fear of thy dark frown impels 
My grief at thought of thee and of thy train, — 

Fantastic nightmare of the brain that tells 
Of life's defeat and sorrow's endless strain; 

But thou canst part the clinging ties of love 
For some short space of the -eternal round, 
And in this earthly circle leave to weep 

Fond hearts impatient of delays that prove 
Too tedious. For this I fear the sound 
Of thy dark pinions through the midnight deep. 



ffrQiobe. 113 



NIOBE. 

When enrobed in vestal whiteness, 
Glinting fair in crystal brightness, — 
Frozen witchery compelling 
Uncouth shapes to beauty, spelling 
Life to an enraptured sleeping, 
I behold thee, Winter, weeping — 
Weeping in thy silent sadness; 
Almost pacified to gladness 
By the beauty of thy anguish, 
I perforce must faint and languish 
In thy presence, at perceiving 
How life's throbbing pulse is breathing 
In thy marble arms, like dying 
Sobs of wind through fancy sighing. 

Then I see, sad-hearted mother, 

How thy heart-throbs thou must smother 



ii4 cA Light Through the Storm. 

In a sigh of music, frozen 

'Midst the realms which thou hast chosen 

As thy home, — to weep forever 

For the children who will never 

More return to still the sorrow 

Which returns on every morrow. 

Fierce Latona, with Apollo 

And Diana swift to follow, 

What stern fury nerved such slaughter? 

Gentler measures might have taught her — 

Poor, proud Niobe — the beauty 

Of humility and duty. 

But, methinks, amidst her wailing 
There is still some hope prevailing, 
For her children are eternal, — 
Changed, exulted by supernal 
Ecstacy of love undying, 
Trusting through despondent sighing. 
When spring's tenderness is telling 
Nature of her soul indwelling, 



V^iobe. 115 

When each icy spire and spindle 
Softly melting, seems to dwindle 
Into nothing, 'tis the waking 
Of her frozen children, shaking 
Winter's magic to the brightness 
Of new life, the warmth and lightness 
Of a loosened soul. Revealing 
Thy true self, I see thee stealing 
God Apollo, armed with glances 
Gay with life and joy that dances 
To the brook's melodious measure. 
Haste, fair Niobe, and clasp thy treasure. 



n6 



sA Light Through the Storm. 




A SPRING PHANTASY. 

Ah, dearest, the unrestful moan 

Of winter's constant wail, 

In chilly fretful monotone 

Amidst the forest vale, 

Has ceased its dismal chiding, 

And airy thought is riding 

Like swallow high 'mid spring's delight 

Of azure air, in blissful gliding 

Through sunbeams newly dight. 



So let us linger where the joy 
Most fondly sings and broods, 



A Spring Phantasy. 117 

Casting the winter's dull annoy — 

The chill unquiet moods — 

Like dappled serpent shaking 
His dingy slough on waking, 
We'll wander clad in orient hues, 
In radiant robes of pleasure's making, 
Which fancy light indues. 

The humming bird-shall be our guest, 
Light trembling o'er the bell 
Of manzanita blooms in quest 
Of teeming honeyed cell. 

We'll breathe the inspiration 

Of Flora's fair ovation, — 

Of fields embossed with flowery gems ; 

And worship mute with adoration 

The meadow's diadems. 

With nodding pepper-grass we'll weep 
Upon the woody hill, 
On tender shepherd' s-purse we'll sleep, 
And wake to feel the thrill 



n8 *A Light Through the Storm. 



Of nature's sudden splendor; 
Our souls with passion tender 
Enwoven deep in rapture's sky- 
Where saffron dawn-clouds light, engender 
A hope which cannot die. 

Come, love, the quail is calling loud, 

The clattering blackbirds sing, 

The lizard 'scapes his chilly shroud, 

And every sentient thing 

Is teeming with its measure 

Of sweet expressive pleasure : 

Come, love, we'll join the gladsome train, 

For heaven is full of golden treasure, 

And joy has banished pain. 



Gently, Gently, Voices Stealing. n 9 



GENTLY, GENTLY, VOICES STEALING. 

Gently, gently, voices stealing 
From the misty gloom of years, 

Whisper words of tender feeling 
Soothingly into my ears. 

When by midnight silence saddened, 
I have heard those tender sounds, 

How my troubled thoughts have gladdened, 
Soothed from pains unhealing wounds. 

Ah, my blessed love, forever 

We are living in the past, 
And the strife of hot endeavor 

Burns into a dream at last; 

Burns into a dream of sorrow, 

Dwindles to a sigh of pain, 
But the hope will mount to-morrow, 

And the lesson still remain. 



i2o zA Light Through the Storm, 



FOOTSTEPS. 

The tread of feet • 
Through the busy street- 
How they echo and sound 
On the cold stone ground. 
The man with a pace 
As grave as his face, 
Weighty and slow 
From years of woe, — 
The idler that shuffles 
The school boy that scuffles 
And shambles along 
With a catch of a song 
On his puckered lips, 
The maiden that trips 
Light-hearted and gay 
On her thoughtless way. 
And the tramp of feet 



Footsteps. 

As the drums loud beat, 
And the blue coats start 
For the war's grim heart ; 
Or the slow, slow tread 
That attends the dead 
To its resting place. 
Thus life's hot race 
Must ever end ; 
Towards the grave we trend, 
Yet the tread of feet 
Through the busy street 
Still wakens the sound 
Of its endless round, — 
New steps will tread 
In the paths of the dead. 



121 



i22 zA Light Through the Storm. 



ATTIS. 

Fair Attis stood beside the sounding- sea 

And looked across the waters ceaselessly, 

Like some mad prophet who had caught afar 

A glimpse of Phoebus in his radiant car. 

Far, far away he gazed amid the blue, 

While tender fancy shaped the cherished view 

Which filled his gentle eyes with tears of pain 

At thought of bliss which ne'er might be again. 

The fair sun glinted on his visage white, 

The breeze toyed am'rous with his hair, and light 

The siren sea came billowing up the strand 

With freight of kelp to fringe the ribbed sand. 

Oh look not thus so wildly and so still, 

Poor pitiful immortal. Hear the shrill 

Of yon wild wheeling sea-mew circling high, 

With storm cry threat' ning at the azure sky; 

Divert your heart with anything more near 



Attis. 123 

Than that far distant gaze wherewith you peer 
And pierce the past, and 'neath its heavy shell 
Feast on the sweet remembered miracle 
Of happiness now gone — forever flown — 
Shriveled within the compass of a moan, 
A single storm wail or the maniac shriek 
At thought of that fair past you ever seek. 



7 



ODE TO THE PAST. 

Who would recall the past, or let to-day 

Too fondly linger when its hour is gone ? 
Who would rejoice, on life's unending way, 

To know the moment's joy would linger on? 
Loved past! without thy treasured fancies near, 
Without the subtle charm thy thoughts inspire, 

The wealth of rapture gathered from thy shows, 
The burning madness fanned by long desire, 
I know no dream in life, no fancy dear 

To lure my spirit from eternal woes. 



124 zSl Light Through the Storm. 

What shows there are within thy storied fane, 

What half-remembered passions dimly sleep, 
What shadows ever seeking to regain 

Their shifting glories melting as they weep; 
I hear the sound of birds' melodious choir 
As springs come thronging to my fancies' spell, 

I pluck again the flowers beside the rill, 
And summer's whisper steals across the dell, 
Infusing in my heart the ardent fire 

Of passions which the years can never still. 



V 



LOVE'S RESCUE. 

Fair star that dartles o'er the crimson west, 

List to my lay, 
Thou silent wanderer ever seeking rest 

Upon the brink of day, 

Thou winged soul embodied in a ray. 




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Love's Rescue. I2 y 

I asked thy sister of the silent morn, 

Fainting with night, 
Why all things lovely linger till forlorn 

They vanish from our sight, 

Changed from their burning radiance of 
delight. 

But she grew dimmer, dimmer, in the sky— 

The morning burst — 
With never echo of a faint reply. 

I waited till I cursed 

The star and all the hopes my fancy nursed. 

I cursed the star, dear orb, I cursed the beam 

That scorned my thought, 
And ever since a maddened throng I've seen 

Of pallid spectres fraught 

With dim confusion— seeking what I sought. 

They shrieked upon the shuddering midnight air, 
That spectre crew — 



128 zA Light Through the Storm. 

Grim skeletons in sheets — and smote the fair 
Perpetual star-meshed blue, 
Reverberating with their wild halloo. 

Ah, gentle star of evening, hear my lay. 
No more I see 

Those ghosts of horror, for across my way 
An angel chanced to flee, 
Wearing the emblem of eternity. 

I called in agony the passer-by — 
Hope was her name — 

She heard me; in her arms she stilled my cry. 
But now she is no more the same, — 
'Twas love that to my lonely asking came. 



Fate. 



129 




FATE. 

Faint hope that breathes like fitful sighs 

Of summer zephyrs mild, 
Sweet melody that swells and dies 

Amid the forest wild; 
The treasured dream of promise fled, 
The anguished pang of passion dead, 
The grave all cold in which it lies, 

The heart unreconciled: 

Ah Fate, is such your tyrant glee 

To crush the riven heart, 
And do you feed on misery, 

On sorrow's burning smart? 
Still restless on thy passion swells, 
And care-bowed age the story tells 



130 *A Light Through the Storm. 

Of sorrow's wide supremacy 
And joy's swift fading part. 

But, Fate, what realm was ever chained 

To your cold heartless spell ? 
What hearts or lives have you detained 

By senseless miracle? 
Above, around thy seeming- sway 
There bends one mighty destiny, 
In whom all joys and woes contained, 
A glorious promise tell. 



T 



TO A SEA GULL. 

Wild thing of loveliness wanton and free, 
Fair creature that revels above the fierce sea, 
Bird of the atmosphere winging and swaying 
Where storm clouds are bursting and wild tempests 
playing, 



To A Sea Gull. 131 

How lightsome and airily floating and flowing 
You sport where the breakers their white spray are 

throwing, 
How buoyant you rest on the slow heaving tide, 
Like a lover asleep in the lap of his bride. 

Oh sea gull, frail beautiful bird of the wave, 
With plumage so snowy and spirit so brave, 
Some soul freed from earth in your frail form is 

dwelling, 
Some angel of God your far course is compelling. 



132 *A Light Through the Storm. 



SONNET ON THE TIMES. 

Alas, the dreary world is ill at ease, 

With restless chafing straining- through the day, 

Amazedly beholding vast array 

Of riches clutched by avarice to please 

Its glutton greed with feast of miseries, 

Hoarding the dreary gains while sad hearts pray 

Some simple boon their anguish to allay, 

To mitigate their dreaded destinies. 

Oh restless age of poverty and gold, 

Fate sternly ponders thy dissentient mood; 

Amid the thickened clouds that darkly fold 

Thy gloomy features, lurks the bitter brood 

Of want and anarchy, with spirits bold 

To flout thee in thy sullen solitude. 



zA Forest Longing. 135 



A FOREST LONGING. 

Far from busy haunts of men, 
In a lonely mountain glen, 

Where the throbbing 

And the sobbing 
Million hearts are faintly heard, 

Dimly wailing in the sighing 

Of the pine-tree, or the dying 
Echo of some forest bird, 

I am seeking, day by day, 
Some stray flower on my way ; 

And I ponder 

As I wander, 
Ponder on the world afar, 

On the universe of sorrow 

Breaking forth on each new morrow, 
Weeping like a falling star. 



136 *A Light Through the Storm. 

It is cold amid the pines, 
And the sun but faintly shines 

Through the raining 

And complaining 
Of the winter wind that moans; 

And the flower I seek is shrinking 

In the loam, while I am thinking 
Of the troubled world that groans. 

Oh could I but find that flower! 
Oh had I the magic power, 

By some spelling, 

Of compelling 
It to grow where all might see ! 

I would nurse its tender passion, 

Nourish it in such a fashion 
It would live eternally. 



Freedom Triumphant. 137 

FREEDOM TRIUMPHANT. 

Hail, child of Freedom ! hail ecstatic star 

That blazed upon the wide world's darkening' 
west ! 

Herculean nursling — fate descried afar 

What glorious promise did your birth invest; 

What thraldoms shaken to the wild winds free 

Would rend the ebon mask of liberty ; 

What throes of bloody passion, thrilling pain, 

Convulsing agony would brave to gain 

Immortal life, the blessed destiny 

Serene and calm amid eternity. 

Hail, loved republic ! realm foredoomed to stand 
Supreme amid the wavering sway of fate, 

Beholding kingdoms totter from the land, 

And shrines once cherished, cold and desolate : 

Thou knowest thy burning mission ; thou hast 
heard 

Direct from God the consecrated word 

Sounding amid the hurried years that sweep 



138 zA Light Through the Storm. 

Thy impulse onward, upward, steep on steep, 
Surcharging thy onspeeding hopes that gird 
The very skies thou wing'st like soaring bird. 

Hail, loved America ! fond name that peals 

Like seraph trumpet's blast to patriot ear, 
Inciting thoughts so deep the heart conceals 
This inmost meaning, lest the image dear 
Too brightly should inflame the fervent breast, 
And vex the thrilling soul with thoughts too blest. 
Like ocean's anthem hurled about the sphere 
Thy voice continuous sounds from year to year, 
While mightier tasks through ripening years attest 
The realm attuned to heaven's sublime behest. 

Oh sacred nation, should the sordid stain 

Of bonds enslaving taint again thy state, 
Should men in thy confines be crushed again, — 

Should Mammon, knocking at thy temple gate, 
Gain entrance, quelling stifled hearts that cry, 
Oppressed and weak, for banished liberty — 
Oh, let me then escape thy cursed land 



Freedom Triumphant . 



i39 



Debased and fallen ! Let me rather stand 
An alien in an alien realm to die, 
Lamenting thy despised inconstancy. 

No, no, base slanderer of my country's fame, 

Dare not oppose fate's purposed will sublime, 
Predict not tyrant rule nor despot shame 

The bitter fruit of constant toiling time. 
No slavish minions, bred by grasping lust, 
Shall tread thy heroes' fame to filthy dust, 
No tyrant lordlings mocking honor's right 
Shall ever wrest the sway of freedom's might; 
Now and forever shall thy sacred trust 
In heavenward pantings prove thy purpose just. 



i4° <tA Light Through the Storm. 



OH BLESSED HOPE STILL DREAM. 

Oh blessed hope still dream, 

Still live and dream and see 
The fitful flames that shoot and stream 

Across the darkness free, 

Startling the world to thoughts of liberty. 

Oh blessed love, still dwell 
In weary hearts that pine, 

With whispered voice and tender spell 
Still show the world that thine — 
Thine is the only tone that speaks divine. 

Oh blessed trust of man, 

Let no black-clad despair, 
Haunting the world with visage wan, 

From some fell midnight lair 

Spring at your throat and root his tushes there. 



Oh "Blessed Hope Still "Dream. 141 

We live in God's own world, 

His heart is ever here; 
In every bud His thought is furled, 

His presence ever near 

Reveals itself in every passion dear. 

We share this realm divine 

With the eternal King ; . 
Our hopes, like tendrils of the vine, 

To His must ever cling — 

Scorning support from any lesser thing. 

We, too, His realm create, 

Each soul a vital power, 
Startling itself with thoughts elate, 

Advances hour by hour, 

Winning its part of God's immortal dower. 

Oh hope, oh love, oh soul, 
Oh universe of joy, 

Why seems thy distant cherished goal 
So hedged with fierce annoy, 
Environed so to tempt us and destroy ? 



142 zA Light Through the Storm. 

THE ETERNAL SECRET. 

Oh world-sphinx vast, remote, austere, 

Delving amid the inmost place 

Where death and darkness seek embrace 

In their wild unfooted haunt severe, 

Where the progeny of th' howling gale 

Chafe in their cave without avail, 

Moaning for liberty — to try their wings 

Where the siren sings, 

And the storm fiend swings 

O'er the sheeted sea 

Perpetually. 

Oh world-sphinx, how serene and far, 

And how immutable you seem to me, 

With steadfast gaze upon each star 

That throbs and throbs so silently. 

Thou art not like thy Memphian sister, stone, 

Hewn by the antique dwellers of the Nile, 

Thou art without a peer, aloof, alone, 

Resting upon eternity's dark pile. 

I cannot see thee tho' I know thy resting place, 



The Eternal Secret. 143 

What mortal ever gazed upon thy v awful face ? 

Somewhere amid the solitude of night, 

Or where the forest breathed in still delight, 

Or on the sea when tempests mocked the day — 

Listening in tranced delight of sweet dismay 

Somewhere I heard thy voice — I heard thee say, 

' ' Forever ! ' ' 

Oh never, 

Never can I imbued with that one sound 

Resist the heart's elate, exulting bound 

At thought of that "Forever !" 

Oh thou art builded not of flesh or stone, 

Thou canst not die, thou hast not grown, 

Oh thou eternal secret of the spheres, 

Thou spirit casting from thy thought the years 

That bear the world resistless on their tide, 

Thou sphinx thou art a man! I open wide 

My eyes and see thy form at last, at last. 

Thou art all thought, all music, all delight, 

All pain, all sorrow, all the dreams of night, 

Thou art my brother — how the thoughts teem fast, 



144 ^ Light Through the Storm. 

Thou art myself and now I start aghast 
To see the world so mirrored forth in me, 
To know that I am of eternity, 
To know that all is soul and soul is free, 
To know that life can conquer misery ! 



Y 



FAREWELL TO THE MOUNTAINS. 

Dream of beauty, land of splendor, 
Shrine of Nature's inmost heart, 

Teeming joy thy haunts engender, 
Heaven's delight thy scenes impart. 

Mountain wilderness secluded, 

Hedged with clustering groves of pine, 
Haunt of Nature unobtruded, 

Crowned with buds and wreathed vines, 



Farewell to the [Mountains. i 45 

Crystal fountains down thy swelling 
Slopes are leaping toward the sea, 

While thy silent scenes are telling 
Tales of boundless love to me. 

Must I leave thy haunts endearing, 
Paths that lead to fern-paved bowers, 

Haunts where timid deer are peering 
Through a screen of wanton flowers ? 

Thy fond scenes are trebly cherished 

For the passion there inlaid, 
For the frantic love that nourished 

Longings thirsting for its aid. 

Then farewell my mountain dwelling, 

Love's sequestered bowery vale, 
Time's impatient stride compelling, 

Bears me far from thy loved dale. 



146 zA Light Through the Storm. 

Now to mingle 'mid the busy 

Hum of restless city's din, 
Roaring 'till the mind grows dizzy, 

Reeling with its woe and sin. 

There to live and there to squander 
Life's unrestful span in care, 

There in aimless search to wander, 
Finding nothing good and fair. 

No,, no, no, a higher meaning 
Throbs amid the city's life, 

And a deeper truth is screening- 
Dark its form in sin and strife. 

With the torch of love bright glowing 
I will seek the secret spring, 

Bubbling through the filth, and showing 
Light and goodlin everything. 



To A Thrush. 147 







TO A THRUSH. 

Oh calm and restful gloaming, 

With dubious light, 
When beetles start to roaming 

And moths to flight ; 
When from the west is dying 

The roseate hue, 
And length' ning shades are lying 

In mystic blue, 
I love your silent dreaming, 

And yon lone star, 
Jove's lamp, or sudden streaming 

Of meteor far. 

I love to hear the quavering 
High trembling tone 



148 iA Light Through the Storm. 

Of hidden insect wavering 

'Twixt grass and stone; 
And then when, breathless, waiting, 

The air is still, 
A voice, full, undulating, 

With many a thrill, 
Is launched, melodious, tender, 

From yonder dell — 
Such thoughts it does engender 

As wizard spell. 

Oh voice, oh thrush, oh fairy, 

Whate'er you be 
So full, so light and airy, 

So rich and free; 
I love you far more dearly 

Than all the rest 
Of evening's joys; more nearly 

Your panting breast 
Speaks of my own wild longing — 

Those hopes and fears 
Impetuously thronging 

Upon the years. 




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Reflections. 151 



REFLECTIONS ON FINDING THE 

SKELETON OF A DEER IN 

THE FOREST. 

Offspring of freedom and the mountain airs, 

Supreme amid thy undiscovered lairs 

Where plumed ferns droop tenderly and green, 

In some far fastness of thy wide demesne 

Where fretted tracery of the tangled trees 

Enlaces o'er thy head, as if to please 

Thy timid fancy with a gloaming light 

At noonday, or to shield thy sudden flight, 

I love to see 

The wild exuberant glee 

Of thy light leaping so tumultuously. 

Oh large-eyed creature, delicately made, 
The sportive wind in garb of flesh arrayed, 
Thou monarch of the mountains, antler-crowned, 
Thou leaping thought, transcending at a bound 



152 zA Light Through the Storm. 

Eternal laws of nature; like the arrow 

Ignoring earth and everything too narrow 

For perfect freedom — till, alas the day, 

Thy fate o' ermasters thee, and petty clay 

Becomes once more 

As humble as before, .. - 

And now we spurn what erst we did adore. 

I fain would think thee higher than the clod 

Whereon with careless step I recent trod — 

Wild wanderer of the forest ! At thy birth 

A soul looked out upon the gladsome earth 

And gloried in the power, the joy, the light 

Of simple living, — in the sunshine bright, 

The tender buds and browse, the summer air, 

In all things to the senses good and fair. 

I grieve to find 

Such tokens of a mind, 

Now tenantless and vacant here enshrined. 

The scrutiny of science might proclaim 
Strange store of meaning in this ruined frame, 



Reflections. 153 

Behold in every bone the mark sublime 
Of adaptations wrought by ceaseless time, 
Interpreting as God's last miracle 
Each modulation shaped so deftly well. 
Thus let them read the word divine revealed 
In each concrete expression. But concealed 
I see behind 

These bones a vanished mind, — 
The token of a soul now unconfined. 

NATURE'S HARMONIES. 

Oh mighty harmonies of ever- changing mood, 

Reverberating through the awful solitude, 

Where nature's heavenly choir exalts in loud 

proclaim 
The ever-living God, that peoples her domain 
With untold love and beauty — sounds that ever sing 
In tender breathing pines or frantic hurrying 
Of wintry tempests, does some constant aim attend 
Your voicing, to embody the eternal end 



154 *A Light Through the Storm. 

Of all creation in articulate tones that tell, 

Each one some fragment of the love we know so 

well? 
You, merry meadow-lark that bubbles from the 

grain 
Your tinkling threnody of liquid song, what strain 
Of human art could pour diviner breath upon 
The morning's misty verdure ere the sun has shone? 
And you, sweet-scented pines that wage incessant 

sighs 
And multitudinous murmurings till the whispering 

dies 
In half- felt spirit breaths that slumber and yet dream 
Of airy clouds fantastic through the blue that stream, 
Tell me what prayer divine inspires such fainting 

tones 
Of subtle beauty throbbing through aetherial zones? 
But thou, oh surging ocean, awfullest, most sublime 
Of pow'rs that lash against the frantic rush of time, 
Fierce in thy grandeur, wild, perpetual in thy roar, 
With foamy sullen boomings hurling to the shore 



Venture's Harmonies. 155 

t. * 

Thy sheltering mountains, loud is thy vast thunder- 
ing strain 
Of might, immensity, and all that in the name 
Of the Creator stands for power above the check 
Of earthly limits paling at his certain beck. 
O God, amidst thy wondrous sounds, perplexed, 

I pause, 
Uncertain which seems best, or which my heart 

most awes, 
Until the tone of one fair soul, attuned to all 
Of Nature's beauty, echoing sweet her faintest call, 
Chimes on my raptured sense, and then indeed I 

know 
The tenderest breathings thou hast ever breathed 

to show, 
O God, the depths of thy rich love for ardent 
hearts that glow. 



156 <tA Light Through the Storm. 

VOICES THAT SPEAK IN MOURNFUL 
MELODY. 

Voices that speak in mournful melody 

Their plaintive murmur ere they die, 

Souls that have burst their mortal sphere, 

In tender love still lingering near, 

A heavenly phantasy — 

I hear! I hear! 

Faces infused with holy joy, 

Beaming serene of dread annoy, 

Like milk white rose impearled with dew, 

Transfixed eternal where it grew, 

Lovely perpetually, 

I see! I see! 

Oh might I hold one melting tone 

Forever near my soul, my very own, 

Oh might one glance through all eternity 

Be still transfixed unto my own, to be 

My life, my love, my hope, my destiny, 

Oh joy, oh love of vast serenity! 

My heart beats mad to think that this might be. 



Footprints by the Sea. 157 

FOOTPRINTS BY THE SEA. 
By the solemn sounding ocean 
With its mystery of motion, 
With its cadences of sounding, 
With its beating and its pounding, 
With its melody unending, 
With its elements contending, 
By the sea with ceaseless beating, 
I was walking and repeating 
Fragments of its rhythmic voicing, 
Snatches of its vast rejoicing, 
When I spied a footprint trending 
Down the mighty shore unending, 
And I followed where it took me, 
Followed, though my hope forsook me, 
Followed down the sandy beaches, 
Each that idly onward reaches. 
Still I walk beside the ocean 
And a weird untold emotion 
Thrills me when I hear its beating, 
When I hear my heart repeating 
Beat for beat its mighty pounding 
With its mystery of sounding. 



158 zA Light Through the Storm. 



THE UNKNOWN REGION. 

" Darest thou now, O soul, 

Walk out with me toward the unknown region, 
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow ?" 

— Walt Whitman. 

Hand and hand with the angel of Death, when the 
breast has ceased heaving, 

When the joys and the pains of the world, and 
dear friends you are leaving, 

Oh, my soul, dare you walk through the shadow 
that leads toward the light, 

Dare you venture across the dark moor in the thick 
of the night ? 

Where trendest thou, soul, through the ages, what 
end do you see, 

Are you seeking for rest and content, do you long- 
to be free, 



The Unknown Region. 159 

Are you striving for betterment endless, for growth 

without bound, 
For love that transcends earthly longings, that 

round after round 
Reaches upward and upward forever with limitless 

pain, 
With the sorrow of ages to crush it and heaven to 

gain ? 
To the goodness that baffles your strivings and 

leaves you in tears, 
To feel how sublime is the meaning that swells 

thro' the years, 
The meaning that ever eludes you, and sweeps on 

its way 
As dauntless you struggle to reach it, as day after 

day 
You walk through that region of darkness, through 

that region unknown, 
'Till the light of the future beams on you, for your 

woe to atone. 







- '-'■' ' ' — rvc CONGRESS 






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